MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The margin was different. The fight was much different. UConn was different.

And yet nothing was different.

Second-seeded Louisville won the inaugural American Athletic Conference tournament on Saturday night by handing fourth-seeded UConn a 71-61 defeat before a crowd of 13,554 at FedEx Forum. The Huskies (26-8), who failed to fight a week ago in getting annihilated by the Cardinals, showed plenty of fight, mostly in the second half, and still had just about the same result to show for it.

"We lost, so this isn't any different," UConn coach Kevin Ollie said. "We didn't come here to win a semifinals game. We came here to win a championship. It didn't happen."

The simple fact is, the fifth-ranked Cardinals (29-5) are just too good right now. It's difficult to envision anybody beating them. They trailed in this tournament for a total of fewer than 30 seconds, beat Rutgers and Houston by a combined 90 points and haven't come close to being challenged in two weeks.

Moral victories, coaches say, are for the weak. Every team Louisville has played recently has looked weak unintentionally. Thus it was some sort of victory that the Huskies got the better of the Cardinals in the second half.

And it is a testament to the Cardinals that they made that moot in the first half. No detail goes unchecked.

"We try to focus on the defensive end because we know if we get a defensive stop, that's going to lead to our offense," said Louisville forward Montrezl Harrell, who abused the Huskies again to the tune of 22 points and 11 rebounds. "Look at our scouting report, pay attention to every little thing to win the game."

UConn stayed within striking distance for the first 15 minutes of the game, though it never held a lead. But the Cardinals closed the half on a 12-4 run as the Huskies suffered through an awful final

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two minutes of the half. They had the ball with a chance to cut into a nine-point gap, but a pair of turnovers resulted in a Luke Hancock 3-pointer and a Chris Jones layup in the last 32 seconds that put the Cardinals up, 37-23, at the break.

A 14-point deficit against the Cardinals and their suffocating defense might as well be 24 points. Pretty soon, the lead was 20 points. UConn managed to make that the smallest of Louisville's biggest leads in this tournament.

Nothing was going to stop the out-of-control freight train that is the Cardinals.

"We lost it in the first half," said UConn guard Shabazz Napier, who scored 16 points for the Huskies but shot just 4-of-12. "We competed in the second half, but we can't allow ourselves to give that kind of a team that many points and expect to even get close to winning. We can't do that."

It wasn't so much UConn giving Louisville an advantage as much as it was the Cardinals taking it. That's what Louisville does.

The Huskies weren't terrible in the first half. It was a half that would have been fine against most everybody else. Finding gaps against the Louisville matchup zone, something it plays almost exclusively against UConn, was near impossible. Every seemingly open shot was cut off quickly by Louisville's speed. Its closing and recovery speed borders on amazing.

When the Huskies finally found gaps in the middle of the zone, it was too late, good for nothing more than UConn to come within respectable distance of the Cardinals.

"That matchup is very tough," Ryan Boatright said. "They just pass you off. Once you beat one man, the next man is right there. They're moving, but they're not moving. They play a certain area and that's their responsiblity."

Tournament Most Outstanding Player Russ Smith scored 19 points after getting just three a week ago against UConn. DeAndre Daniels led UConn with 17 points and 10 rebounds, 15 of those points coming in the second half.

UConn recovered well from the last beating it took from the Cardinals. It needs to do that again.

"We lost. We failed to get a championship," Boatright said. "But there are bigger and better things in the NCAA Tournament. If we put together some wins and get to Dallas, nobody will remember this."

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